728 research outputs found
Introduction to the 28th International Conference on Logic Programming Special Issue
We are proud to introduce this special issue of the Journal of Theory and
Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP), dedicated to the full papers accepted for
the 28th International Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP). The ICLP
meetings started in Marseille in 1982 and since then constitute the main venue
for presenting and discussing work in the area of logic programming
Confluence Modulo Equivalence in Constraint Handling Rules
Previous results on proving confluence for Constraint Handling Rules are
extended in two ways in order to allow a larger and more realistic class of CHR
programs to be considered confluent. Firstly, we introduce the relaxed notion
of confluence modulo equivalence into the context of CHR: while confluence for
a terminating program means that all alternative derivations for a query lead
to the exact same final state, confluence modulo equivalence only requires the
final states to be equivalent with respect to an equivalence relation tailored
for the given program. Secondly, we allow non-logical built-in predicates such
as var/1 and incomplete ones such as is/2, that are ignored in previous work on
confluence.
To this end, a new operational semantics for CHR is developed which includes
such predicates. In addition, this semantics differs from earlier approaches by
its simplicity without loss of generality, and it may also be recommended for
future studies of CHR.
For the purely logical subset of CHR, proofs can be expressed in first-order
logic, that we show is not sufficient in the present case. We have introduced a
formal meta-language that allows reasoning about abstract states and
derivations with meta-level restrictions that reflect the non-logical and
incomplete predicates. This language represents subproofs as diagrams, which
facilitates a systematic enumeration of proof cases, pointing forward to a
mechanical support for such proofs
Arrow Symbols: Theory for Interpretation
People often sketch diagrams when they communicate successfully among each other. Such an intuitive collaboration would also be possible with computers if the machines understood the meanings of the sketches. Arrow symbols are a frequent ingredient of such sketched diagrams. Due to the arrows’ versatility, however, it remains a challenging problem to make computers distinguish the various semantic roles of arrow symbols. The solution to this problem is highly desirable for more effective and user-friendly pen-based systems. This thesis, therefore, develops an algorithm for deducing the semantic roles of arrow symbols, called the arrow semantic interpreter (ASI). The ASI emphasizes the structural patterns of arrow-containing diagrams, which have a strong influence on their semantics. Since the semantic roles of arrow symbols are assigned to individual arrow symbols and sometimes to the groups of arrow symbols, two types of the corresponding structures are introduced: the individual structure models the spatial arrangement of components around each arrow symbol and the inter-arrow structure captures the spatial arrangement of multiple arrow symbols. The semantic roles assigned to individual arrow symbols are classified into orientation, behavioral description, annotation, and association, and the formats of individual structures that correspond to these four classes are identified. The result enables the derivation of the possible semantic roles of individual arrow symbols from their individual structures. In addition, for the diagrams with multiple arrow symbols, the patterns of their inter-arrow structures are exploited to detect the groups of arrow symbols that jointly have certain semantic roles, as well as the nesting relations between the arrow symbols. The assessment shows that for 79% of sample arrow symbols the ASI successfully detects their correct semantic roles, even though the average number of the ASI’s interpretations is only 1.31 per arrow symbol. This result indicates that the structural information is highly useful for deriving the reliable interpretations of arrow symbols
Applying quantitative semantics to higher-order quantum computing
Finding a denotational semantics for higher order quantum computation is a
long-standing problem in the semantics of quantum programming languages. Most
past approaches to this problem fell short in one way or another, either
limiting the language to an unusably small finitary fragment, or giving up
important features of quantum physics such as entanglement. In this paper, we
propose a denotational semantics for a quantum lambda calculus with recursion
and an infinite data type, using constructions from quantitative semantics of
linear logic
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